Students injured in bus wreck

The occupants of Colleton County School District Bus 16 were headed home from Colleton Medical Center late Tuesday morning, after being examined at the Emergency Department for injuries sustained in a May 8 crash on Cottageville Highway.
Emergency Department personnel were alerted that they would soon see a large number of patients following the crash on Cottageville Highway near Burr Hill Road on May 8 at 7:27 a.m.
When the medical center personnel’s work was done, 22 children and three adults had received care and were in the process of being released.
In the case of the children, medical personnel were working with school district officials to ensure that they were released directly to their parent or legal guardian.
The three adults treated as a result of the accident included the driver and passenger of an SUV that struck the bus in the rear.
“Our team is uniquely skilled to treat patients injured in a motor vehicle crash. We are grateful this was a minor accident with no major injuries,” said ER Physician Dr. Robert Gray. “We are fortunate to live in a community where we are able to take care of our families and neighbors when needed.”
The medical center’s emergency department has experience in dealing with the sudden influx of patients from a bus accident. On April 29, the wreck of a chartered bus on I-95 resulted in the medical center treating 17 injured bus occupants. For that accident, the medical center opened its cafeteria to accommodate all 62 students and chaperones from a North Carolina high school chorus who were returning home from a Florida trip in two chartered buses.
Lance Corporal Matt Southern, a community relations officer with the South Carolina Highway Patrol, said the investigation into the Tuesday’s crash determined that Marion Hickman, 40, of Round O, was driving his Cadillac Esplanade SUV south on Cottageville Highway when he struck the rear of the bus.
The bus, picking up Cottageville Elementary School students, had slowed to turn from Cottageville Highway on to Burr Hill Road when the accident occurred.
Hickman has been cited by the highway patrol for the accident.
Reports of the bus crash resulted in members of the Colleton County Fire-Rescue, Colleton County Sheriff’s Office and Colleton County School District being dispatched to the crash site.
Southern said the crash resulted in Cottageville Highway being closed to traffic.
After the children and adults were checked by firefighter-paramedics, officials decided to have a second bus dispatched to the crash scene to transport the students, the bus driver and bus monitor to the medical center’s Emergency Department. A group of paramedics were assigned to make the trip on the bus with the students.
The two occupants of the SUV were taken to the medical center by ambulance.